It has long been the practice in training of football players specializing in punting and place-kicking the football to supplement open field training with localized training using ball intercepting means to keep the practice ball within the immediate vicinity of the practicing individual. Such intercepting means generally takes the form of a relatively large permanently installed frame supporting a flexible net for intercepting the flight of a kicked ball. Such structures are generally quite large and, while appropriate for established football training areas, restrict the individual to practice at the location of such permanent installation.
There is a need for providing greater opportunity for football kicking specialists to devote training time at home or at other locations away from the established practice area. It is meeting of this need which induced applicant, at the time active in college football as a punting specialist, to construct for his home practice and training the device of the present invention; and to applicant's knowledge nothing of a comparable nature has previously been devised.
A preliminary search in the Patent Office failed to develop any prior art considered to have any direct or anticipatory bearing on the present invention. The closest prior art found in this search is U.S. Pat. No. 3,820,787 issued June 28, 1974 to Leonard F. Heinbigner for Football Practice Target and U.S. Pat. No. 4,437,661 issued March 20, 1984 to John P. Chavez for Football Kicking Trainer Toy. Both of these devices incorporate a small, generally rectangular target frame peripherally supporting a mesh bag which hangs to the rear of the target frame. While these devices can effectively intercept a properly kicked ball they have the disadvantage of being too small to intercept a poorly kicked ball; and even when the ball is intercepted it is inherently difficult and awkward to retrieve the intercepted ball from the hanging bag net configuration behind the target frame. These prior patents have no direct bearing on the subject matter of the present invention.